Help with DH needed - possibly a book recommendation!

[Rollercoasteryears]

Hello all,

I need some help educating my DH into some feminist issues - preferably without having to simply "tell" him about them, as I don't want him to feel like I'm preaching (which would probably backfire) or telling him what to do.

I'll explain a little background - sorry if it ends up longwinded. We have a DS (2.3) and are expecting DC2 in May. As a feminist since my teens, I've always been committed to raising my eventual DCs in as non-sexist a way as possible. There's the obvious stuff (making sure toys aren't treated in a gender specific way etc) but I also think the more subtle stuff such as language is really important.

DH has many marvellous qualities, but let's just say I didn't marry him for his political awareness - he comes from a very traditional, not terribly educated family background, despite which he is generally pretty liberal. He's always known I've wanted to bring the children up in a non sexist way, but we didn't really discuss the specifics of this before DS was born. I've inevitably taken the lead on everything but he's been happy to support my choices and DS (as well as having a lot of vehicles) has a much adored doll baby, lots of kitchen/cleaning toys and his favourite grobag and milk cups are the pink ones!

So far so good. My issue at the moment is language and I'm not sure how to address it. E.g. DH refers to women as "ladies", so the woman who drives DS's boat in the bath is always a "lady" (I call her the captain!). I have made sure that his cuddly toys are a mixture of male and female but DH always forgets and calls them all "he".

This morning's issue (hence the post) related to DS' new fire engine and fire station. I insist on calling them "firefighters" but DH inevitably refers to them as "firemen". This morning he showed DS the pole in the fire station and said to DS "that's where the men go down" - he immediately caught my eye and said all flustered "or ladies, or firemen - oh damn it, I'll call them what I like!" I just said "they're firefighters" and went to have a shower - it was too early to get into a debate about it.

The thing is, I don't want to be "correcting" him all the time - he'll feel got at and won't understand. I suspect like many people, he gets the "bigger" issues but thinks language doesn't matter, whereas I think it's language that forms our thoughts and attitudes.

I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to deal with it. We could of course have a proper in depth conversation about why I think it matters but I'd far rather find a way to get him to agree why it's important so he doesn't just think I'm dominating his views. (I suspect he already feels rather like DS is being brought up with my values rather than his - he's agreed to him being brought up veggie and our household is completely veggie, despite him being a meateater himself.)

I think he may need a good book to read - does anyone know of one that deals with raising children in a non sexist way, or language issues in particular? A few statistics or scientific/sociological facts might help (he really took it on board when I told him the finding that about 95% of books for under 5s are about boys or male animals so we now routinely change some stories/rhymes to be about girls).

Any advice gratefully received - and sorry again for the epic!

[Unrulysun]

I don't have a book recommendation for you but if you're in London (or near?) I do notice that the Fawcett Society has some upcoming talks on feminist child rearing - I think one is from 'Pink Stinks' so that might be something to go along to (together?) and discuss.

I appreciate that you don't want to come across as corrective but wouldn't a 'no blame' discussion of language and its importance be a good idea? Might a book not be seen as slightly patronising? And you would be able to tell him from your own point of view why these things are important.

[im22]

You make "the finding that about 95% of books for under 5s" point and then conclude from that that 95% is a high enough figure that you can draw a conclusion/base an opinion from (ie you need to change stories you tell him). Might it be worth my time to point out that the only stats I could find on gender of firefighters was that the highest proportion of female firefighters was 5.3% in the study, (in America i know, but likely to be close to British trends) and therefore about 95% of firefighters are firemen?? Is making the language you use to teach your son gender neutral so important to you that you prefer to blur facts in doing so? What possible benefit does lying to a child in order to push an agenda have ?? And your own child at that

link to stats i quoted: www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=955&itemID=23601&URL=Research/Fire%20statistics/The%20U.S.%20fire%20service&cookie_test=1

[bringbacksideburns]

Blimey!!

I consider myself a Feminist but by gum, you sound hard work.

Ease off him a bit. It sounds like you are constantly lecturing him.

[bringbacksideburns]

What i really mean to say is you will have many opportunities in the future to address gender stereotyping, particularly when your children start school.

At some point you could casually pass on a particular text that has been recommended but it would irritate me if i was suddenly bombarded with them all at the same time.

[AliceWorld]

Rollercoaster - totally with you. Language is massively important. And I wouldn't rely on schools to correct it. Teachers aren't a non gendered language bubble. Can't recommend a book I'm afraid though.